Aradhana, eye-witness in the Ruchika Girhotra molestation case, on Saturday in Chandigarh said mere stripping of former Haryana DGP S P S Rathore's police medal was not enough and demanded a change in the system so that justice in molestation cases is not delayed for so long.
"Taking away the medal of Rathore won't be enough. Rather, we need a change in our system where a young girl is not subjected to such a trauma. For that we need such cases to be dealt by fast track courts so that the victim gets justice within days and not months and years," Aradhana told reporters here.
Aradhana, who was honoured by a Chandigarh-based human rights organisation for waging a fight to get justice for her late friend Ruchika, said though no amount of monetary compensation would be enough for the victim's family, but she said the former DGP's property and other assets should be auctioned and its proceeds given to the Girhotra family.
She said that it was shameful that despite the heinous crime, Rathore, who was recently sentenced to six months of jail in the Ruchika molestation case, was a "free man". The former DGP was immediately released after pronouncement of the judgment by the CBI Court here released on bail.
"He is still a free man. If we had a system where the accused would have been punished immediately, Ruchika's suicide could have been prevented, but Rathore being an influential person such circumstances were created that she and her family went through a harrowing time," she said.
Aradhana also held the private convent school here where Ruchika studied "equally responsible" for driving her to suicide. "The school is also equally responsible for her death. After she was expelled for no fault of hers, she could not take the trauma. She had studied in the school from her childhood and their step (of expelling her) had left her in a state of shock," she claimed.
Recalling the trauma which she herself had gone through after being witness to the molestation incident and later seeing the suffering of Ruchika, she said "I lost my childhood. I started thinking about male psychology and how it could subject a teenaged girl to such trauma".
Aradhana's Australia-based husband Aman, who was also present with her today along with the couple's minor daughter, said his wife had full support from his family in the case. "When I married Aradhana, I had no inkling to the case, but later on I realised that she was fighting for truth and to get justice for her childhood friend and her family. Now, we are all with her in this fight, which we will take to its logical end," Aman said. Meanwhile, city-based NGO Forum for Human Rights, formed a human chain here today to demand justice for the victim and her family.
"There has to be a change in our old laws. In cases where accused are influential people like Rathore, we feel that higher the position of the accused higher should be the punishment awarded," the Forum's activist Kailash Dutta and S K Gupta said. PTI
